Top Gear star denies it's end of the road

Top Gear star James May has called a radio show to deny reports that the motoring programme's days were numbered.

He phoned Chris Evans on his Radio 2 Breakfast Show after he heard the DJ suggesting new names to front Top Gear if May and co-hosts Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson quit.

May told Evans: "I woke this morning to you on the radio as planned -- I mean I set it to do that -- and, as I stirred, your chirpy little voice came out of the ancestral Roberts and I realised with some dismay you were recruiting people for my job."

The star, whose new show James May's Toy Stories: The Great Train Show is on this weekend, admitted to worrying whether the show had "peaked" but said filming on the new series was about to start.

He said: "I was actually out with Jeremy and Richard last night and, unless there is something they haven't told me, we are all off next week to film part of the next series where we reinvent public transport so it's not ending now."

The show, which was first broadcast in 1977, has had a number of presenters and was relaunched in 2002.

May said: "Top Gear I think will survive longer than us -- after all, it existed before us for many, many years -- and one day we will hand it over to someone else and they will reinvent it again."